Movie reviews by professional critics that read like sporkings

Have you ever come across a newspaper or other professional review of a terrible-sounding movie (or one you know to be terrible) that made you crack up with its snarkiness? I saw one today in the Irish Times' weekly media supplement for the film 'Love Happens':

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BEFORE KICKING this useless film in its stupid, fat head, let us pause to, once again, bemoan an infuriating irregularity in contemporary genre classification.

Love Happens , like such beasts as PS I Love You and The Breakup, has already been offered as evidence of decline in the American romantic comedy. We’ll say it just one more time and then leave the issue to rot. These films are not comedies . They may occasionally attempt to be funny (and fail), but so does Hamlet, and nobody calls that a comedy.

So what is Love Happens ? A paid message from the Seattle Tourist Board? An audiovisual memorandum from the Register of Moronic Aphorisms and Fatuous Pleasantries? An emetic in celluloid form? All these things and more, my friends.

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Opportunities announce themselves. If you see anybody emerging from this badly acted, clumsily structured, wretchedly sentimental film looking refreshed and improved, then consider selling him or her a nonexistent timeshare in an imaginary resort. Gullible rubes are a resource worth exploiting.

To this day, I can remember the Phoenix New Times reviewer's comment on Bill Cosby's Ghost Dad: "Some reporters have speculated that Cosby made Ghost Dad so his fans would forget about Leonard, Part 6. This is like giving someone syphilis to make them forget you gave them gonorrhea."

Roger Ebert has written some of my favorite critical reviews: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle.... The filmmakers seem to have aimed the film at an audience that may not have heard of Pearl Harbor, or perhaps even of World War Two."

But then Ebert is a world-class master of necessary snark. Ebert on Freddy Got Fingered: "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

Ebert on Armageddon: "Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. "Armageddon" is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out."

Ebert on The Dukes of Hazzard: "The movie stars Johnny Knoxville, from "Jackass," Seann William Scott, from "American Wedding," and Jessica Simpson, from Mars. Judging by her recent conversation on TV with Dean Richards, Simpson is so remarkably uninformed that she should sue the public schools of Abilene, Texas, or maybe they should sue her.... Of course you don't have to be smart to get into "The Dukes of Hazzard." But people like Willie Nelson and Burt Reynolds should have been smart enough to stay out of it.... I wonder if there were moments when Reynolds reflected that, karma-wise, this movie was the second half of what "Smokey and the Bandit" was the first half of."

Ebert on Catwoman: ""Catwoman" is a movie about Halle Berry's beauty, sex appeal, figure, eyes, lips and costume design. It gets those right. Everything else is secondary, except for the plot, which is tertiary."

Ebert on The Core: "Yes, the Earth's core has stopped spinning, and in less than a year the Earth will lose its electromagnetic shield and we'll all be toast--fried by solar microwaves. To make that concept clear to a panel of U.S. military men, Professor Josh Keyes (Aaron Eckhart) of the University of Chicago borrows a can of room freshener, sets the pr opellant alight with his Bic, and incinerates a peach. To watch Keyes and the generals contemplate that burnt peach is to witness a scene that cries out from its very vitals to be cut from the movie and made into ukulele picks."

Ebert on Resident Evil: Apocalypse: "Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children."

Ebert on Battlefield Earth: "Some movies run off the rails. This one is like the train crash in "The Fugitive." I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of jokes about bad movies."

Yeah, Ebert is cool people. When he is doing his job.

I'm a big fan of Ebert, except when he decides to go on bizarre diatribes about video games and politics... but that aside, his reviews are pretty fantastic most of the time. Have you ever seen his book I Hated Hated Hated This Movie? It's a collection of the worst movies he's ever had to review. Pick it up sometime; I've had many good times with that book.

One of my favourite reviews of his is for Little Indian Big City, which he awarded zero stars. I just read the online version of the review, and it's inexplicably full of words being smashed together. No matter. It's still legible.

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Through a stroke of good luck, the entire thirdreel of the film was missing the day I saw it. I went back to the screening roomtwo days later, to view the missing reel. It was as bad as the rest, but nothingcould have saved this film. As my colleague Gene Siskel observed, ``If the thirdreel had been the missing footage from Orson Welles' `The MagnificentAmbersons,' this movie still would have sucked.'' I could not have put it bettermyself.

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If you, under any circumstances, see ``Little Indian,Big City,'' I will never let you read one of my reviews again.

I also recommend his review for North. I'll pull out the book later and pick out a few of his other funnier ones. They're all online on his site.

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

I also recommend his review for North. I'll pull out the book later and pick out a few of his other funnier ones. They're all online on his site.

The review for North is fantastic.

I've never actually seen the TV review of the movie. You ought to check out the written review as well. My god, that movie... that movie. Hell, check out the Nostalgia Critic's review to boot.

I'll add to the Ebert love with his review of Exit to Eden:

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On the first page of my notes, I wrote "Starts slow." On the second
page, I wrote "Boring." On the third page, I wrote "Endless!" On the
fourth page, I wrote: "Bite-size Shredded Wheat, skim milk, cantaloupe,
frozen peas, toilet paper, salad stuff, pick up laundry."

I can't help but think of this every time I'm watching something especially boring.

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Ebert on Catwoman: ""Catwoman" is a movie
about Halle Berry's beauty, sex appeal, figure, eyes, lips and costume
design. It gets those right. Everything else is secondary, except for
the plot, which is tertiary."

that is amazing and i love it

As a side note its interesting that Freddy Got Fingered didn't make the Rotten Tomatoes list of the worst reviewed 100 movies of the last 10 years. Apparently it rated higher than the 7% Rotten rating it took to make the list.
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Don't read the comments thread to it. The fail of some of the commenters in understanding how the list was made and Rotten Tomatoes works is heavy.

He dislikes Tommy Boy. That makes him a moron.

Next.

Variety's review of Bratz: The Movie

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Brazenly shoplifting along the entire Rodeo Drive of teen-girl classics (especially, if not exclusively, “Clueless,” “Mean Girls” and “Election”), it takes everything in its grab bag to an extreme, including the titular quartet of hotties who, inexplicably, appear to be entering high school at the age of 20.

At Carry (sic) Nation High School -- a combination health spa and disco, with a nod to the fascist slave factory of “Metropolis” -- the four begin as “BFF” (best friends forever!). But they are divided by new allegiances to new cliques: Brainiac Jade (Janel Parrish) becomes a chemistry geek, Sasha (Logan Browning) a get-down cheerleader, Cloe (Skyler Shaye) a soccer player with David Beckham’s foot. Only Yasmin (Nathalia Ramos) remains more or less unaffiliated, like Switzerland.

Rolling Stone's review of 88 Minutes

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But I'm guessing it's the pressure of an idiot script by Gary Scott Thompson and understandably clueless direction from Jon Avnet that forces Pacino to ham it up so vigorously that you want to garnish him with cloves and a slice of pineapple.

Roger Ebert's review of The Spirit

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To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material.

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Roger Ebert has two books of his reviews for some of the worst movies I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and Your Movie Sucks that are quite entertaining. I own them both.